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The Death Toll in Darfur

On Sunday, the Times ran an op-ed piece suggesting that the Save Darfur Coalition was exaggerating the scale of genocide in Darfur and that the number of deaths was perhaps 200,000 rather than 400,000. I happened to be hiking with my kids around Mt. Hood then, but I came back to find my email account burning up with indignant emails about the essay (written, I hasten to add, by an outsider).

In my articles, I tend to use “several hundred thousand” as the death toll, because any particular number suggests a level of certainty that we will never obtain. Is it possible that the toll is 200,000? Absolutely. Is it possible that it’s more than 400,000? Absolutely.

One factor makes me wonder if the toll is sometimes inflated, and that’s the record of past atrocities. I covered Tiananmen, and other “witnesses” talked about tens of thousands of dead, when it was probably in the hundreds. Ditto for the fall of Romania’s communist regime in 1989, particularly in Timisoara. In Kosovo, there were estimates of 100,000 dead; the actual toll turned out to be less than 1,000.

On the other hand, Darfur (including eastern Chad and northern CAR) is in some ways more similar to Congo, where you have an already vulnerable population stressed by war – and where people die not so much of bullets as from hunger and malaria caused by their displacement. In Congo, a good mortality survey suggests that 4 million people died from the conflict over ten years – and that would suggest that Darfur is higher than we believe.

Moreover, I have to say that when I travel in Darfur or Chad or CAR, I’m struck that you don’t see many men. You see children and women, but very few men. Now some of the men are in rebel armies, and some are hiding in the bush, but I wonder if an awful lot of them aren’t dead. If so, that would suggest a toll much higher than we expect.

Eric Reeves, a knowledgeable and passionate advocate for Darfur, has been compiling mortality estimates for Darfur since January 2004, and his most recent is “now significantly exceeds 450,000.” Eric has a blast at the Times op-ed at his website, www.sudanreeves.org.

John Hagan, a scholar who co-authored a mortality estimate of Darfur in Science magazine, wrote to say:

Our Science article remains the only peer reviewed scientific estimate of the death toll in Darfur since the GAO review. Our floor estimate of the death toll is in the “range between 170,000 and 255,000 deaths.” We further said that “This estimate covers 31 months of conflict that, as of August 2006, has been underway for 43 months. If the further 12 months of conflict were well estimated, and/or if all or most missing or disappeared persons were presumed dead, the death estimate would be much higher.” The conflict has now continued for 55 months, large numbers of Darfur civilians continue to be missing and presumed (but uncounted) as dead, and many more persons are inaccessible to humanitarian groups. So it is still correct to say that the death toll may be far higher than even our upper bound 255,000 estimate….Yet there are important reasons why a number as large the 400,000 death toll used by Save Darfur may yet be correct, as indicated in our Science article.

So my take is that we don’t really have much clue how many have died in Darfur (including Chad and CAR, where much of the mortality has occurred). I’ll continue to use “several hundred thousand,” which I believe to be conservative – and it’s still true if the number is higher. But the Save Darfur Coalition’s estimates of 400,000 seem plausible to me – and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, think of all the missing men, and fear the toll could be much higher still.

I appreciate the reporting by Mr. Kristof.
Generally the “corporate “press does this part
of our planet an injustice. I thank the NYT and
Mr.Kristof for providing some light to the “dark
continent”.
Hopefully, we will not have to wait for another administration in Washington D.C.to fully stop
the slaughter.
Thank you.
Thomas Paine Cronin

I am aware of how difficult it is to estimate the number of deaths in a situation such as Darfur. During the 1964 Congo rebellion I became the ‘authority’ in providing figures for civilian deaths. Totals for foreigners (about 325) were far easier to calculate than for Congolese. I visited ‘killing monuments’ and collected tales from survivors. I also interviewed Cocngolese and foreigners in diverse areas. My figure of ‘10,000 Congolese civilians killed’ became the figure used by the State Department and the press. The actual figure well could have been half (or double) this.
Kristof’s observations suggest to me that the 200,000-400,000 range seems reasonable, though, with a level of precision that is not likely, the range conceivable could be below 200,000 to well-above 400,000. Today the ‘accepted figure’ for deaths in the congo over the past decade is four million. Who really knows?
Keith Wheelock
former Foreign Service officer

This comment is not directly related to the present column but is relevant. The on line book review, magazine and travel sections could greatly benefit from more pictures. Since space is not a major issue and the incremental cost relatively modest the net gain could be substantial.

Thanks to Nicholas Kristof’s honest reporting on Darfur. His publicity has helped the cause imeasurably.

I wonder why people would argue about the difference of 200,000 or 400,000 when it is obvious to anyone following the conflict that the reason these numbers are not known is due to the fact that the government responsible for the killing is not allowing an accurate count. Their official count is not even in the ten thousands.

We should know from our own country’s experience that if the death toll were lower, the alledged killers would want to prove their point. Sudan has done no such thing. In fact they have resisted any attempts at an accurate count.

The facts that we do know are enough to engage and shock us all enough to push our representatives to act forcefully and decisively. We all should do all we can to alleviate the suffering and pressure the Sudanese government to become more transparent.

What are numbers? These are human beings being systematically killed and tortured, displaced and refused outside assistance. We can do something and we should. If the number was 200,000 does that mean that we should care less?

Of course, only a bitter cynic would suggest that maybe the Save Darfur Coalition used the high 400,000 figure because they knew the Darfur situation would continue for some time and they wanted their commercial to have a long shelf life – i.e. if the estimate is not true now, it will be sometime during the commercial’s run. Count me among the bitter cynics. Also, see my blogspot at: //newthinking.blogspot.com/2006/07/doctrine-of-enforced-humanitarianism.html
for my own take on how to solve this crisis. I’m increasingly skeptical anything substansive will be done by this administration, however. This will be another mess Bush will allow his successor to inherit. There’s probably never been a worse time in history since the Civil War to become the next President of the United States.

Darfur is not America’s problem or fault and we need to focus on the needs of our own people. Are you living in another planet? If you care about Darfur you don’t have to go to Africa, just visit any American innner city ghetto (now expanding into the suburbs) and you have the chance to help victims of barbarity, murder and genocide, right here in America. However, people like you simply don’t dare to visit America’s Darfurs.

You are feeding the American people the idiocy that we can help the world, when we cannot or will not help our own blacks. George Washington, the founder of our country warned the American people about foreign entanglements. We have to think about America first, just like the Red Chinese think only about their country’s interest as they sell their people into slavery for “Global” corporations and buy energy from Sudan the murderers of Darfurians.

WAKE UP BEFORE YOU FIND YOURSELF WITHOUT A COUNTRY OR A PLACE TO ESCAPE TO.

Before you go off on a rant, you should check sources and not be so quick to judge. I agree we should help those close to us first and if you visited our group’s website you will see in my first speech that I said that what we do for Darfur is meaningless if we don’t confront racism in our states, localities and homes. Racism is part of the reason this genocide is allowed to continue and possibly why 800,000 Rwandan’s were left to die when Clinton abandoned them, and why other third world countries are ignored. Our country only acts when it is in our economic or political interest. Surely you don’t criticize our efforts to help stop a genocide wherever it occurs.

As for accusing me for not daring to visit what you call “American Darfurs”, I challange you to spend a couple of weeks with me or others that fight for social justice all over the country.

People “like you” as you put it should not be so quick to judge. You would be ashamed of what you said if you knew the truth of what our organization does.

But your point is well taken and I agree that we must help those who are disenfranchised throughout the world, including the USA. I have experienced conditions in this country that would appall those who turn their backs on poverty every day. However nothing in this country compares to what is occurring in Darfur, Chad and CAR.

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